Priced To Sell

November 20, 2008

In today’s volatile market, buyers expect to get a great deal when then purchase a home. It’s almost as if they want to be rewarded for being brave and credit worthy. So how do you price your home so that it’s competitive enough to get buyers looking at it, but high enough to allow the negotiating room buyers need so they can assure themselves they purchased the home at a discount?

A while back I showed a home that had been reduced for a quick sale. It was a great deal. The buyer I was working with loved the house and made an offer (90% of list price) on the home. The offer was rejected. When I asked if the buyer would have been happy with the purchase price if the home had originally been listed higher and he’d offered the current list price. The buyer admitted that buying the home at a discount was more important than finding the right house at the right price. He absolutely could not pay full list price for the home, even though the list price was below comparable homes.

It’s difficult for sellers to understand that some of the appreciation they’ve experienced over the last few years has been wiped out. But if a seller has owned for more than about 8 years, he still should have built up enough equity to be able to price well, leave a little room for negotiation and walk away from the table with some profit. Compare profits to what your stock portfolio or retirement is worth, and sellers in most parts of the country are still OK. Yes, there are areas in the country where sellers are upside down in their mortgages, but how many of these sellers have owned for more than 8 years?

So if you’re a seller with enough equity to negotiate, do so with grace and gratitude. Hopefully, you’ll get just a good a deal when you go to buy your next home!

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Local Information for Medford, OR

Latitude: 42.331998 -- Longitude: -122.861874

Other Area Cities: Medford Ashland Central Point

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Medford is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It was named in the 1880s by David Loring, a civil engineer working for the Oregon and California Railroad for his home town of Medford, Massachusetts. As of 2005, the city had a total population of 70,860. It is the county seat of Jackson CountyGR6. It is also believed that Medford was named for the intersection of the railroads, running north to south, and Main Street, running east to west. The original name being Middleford, it was shortened to Medford shortly after its founding.[citation needed] -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Oregon 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Medford	Oregon	United States
Population	63,154	3,421,399	281,421,906
Median age	37	36.3	35.3
Median age for Male	35.3	35.1	34
Median age for Female	38.5	37.5	36.5
Households	25,093	1,333,723	105,480,101
Household population	61,869	3,343,908	273,643,273
Average household size	2.47	2.51	2.59
Families	16,518	877,671	71,787,347
Average family size	2.99	3.02	3.14
Housing units	26,297	1,452,709	115,904,641
Occupied units	25,093	1,333,723	105,480,101
Vacant units	1,204	118,986	10,424,540

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